I am driving into our village on a sunny Saturday morning. Belching exhaust smoke but bedecked in wedding ribbons, an early-Fifties Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire comes chugging over the brow of the hill towards me.

1956 Armstrong Siddeley Star Sapphire

Some people would sigh, "Aah! How lovely!" at the sight of this old car in two-tone black and white, but seeing the Sapphire makes me seethe with fury: at the brazen brass neck of the wedding hire firms who have the cheek to charge up to £500 for this derelict old wreck and at the sentimental gullibility of the poor saps who line up to pay those outrageous charges.

My women editors on the Life section tell me that brides and grooms hire such heaps as wedding cars because "they want a fantasy car, the like of which they've never driven in before. Something that will look amazing in photos."

I could share that view for any bride riding majestically to her marital doom in an immaculate 1931 Duesenberg Model J, a 1938 Vanvooren Derby Bentley, or a Sixties Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman (every one of which I might sell a child into slavery to own) but an Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire? Give me a break.

I have lurid, imperishable memories of this particular pile of automotive misery. The father of a beloved girlfriend owned a 346 Sapphire in the Sixties and I couldn't begin to number the times it failed to start, broke down en route or required expensive repairs.

Unless it has been maintained by a dedicated enthusiast, I would put the chances of an original Sapphire making it to the church on time today - even if the journey is less than 10 miles - as no better than 50/50. I would sooner squander £500 on the National Lottery than shell out the same sum to entrust a daughter of mine to its care on her wedding day.

The same goes, in spades, for the Fifties Jaguar Mk VIIs and Austin Princesses, the Sixties Humbers and Seventies Daimlers which the brigands in the wedding car trade have the nerve to pass off as "classics". At least the Sapphire had the virtue in its day of being adventurous in its engineering.

An Austin Princess was always rubbish - a rusty, wobbly pile of pomposity on foundations which could have come from a Foden truck. You could probably buy one for less than the prices being advertised by these scalpers for a day's wedding hire.

For an authentic whiff of the foul attitudes of some of these wedding car bandits towards their customers, take these choice words of the would-be vendor of an Austin Princess, advertising on the internet: "Everyone thinks it's a Rolls-Royce - so that's what I tell them. All of these knuckleheads kept telling me how they like my Rolls."

If I were helping to arrange a wedding for one of my daughters, I would suggest that we rent an excellent brand new car for the day, and ask a good friend to stay sober and do the driving (what could be a kinder service?).

An Audi A8, a Mercedes S-class or a Jaguar XJ would cost about £500-£600 for the day and be clean, comfortable, free from the pongs of decades of other people's dubious doings and entirely dependable.

My colleagues seem mystified. "You might as well borrow your dad's car for the day," was one response. "If it's a 'comfortable' executive saloon you want, borrow one from the company car pool," was another. Excellent suggestions.

Most of the so-called "classics" offered today were the dads' cars and the executive saloons of half a century ago. They survive as nothing more than clapped-out clichés.

Choosing to be driven to your wedding in a Sapphire is as tasteful and original as choosing My Way to be played at the crematorium as the coffin slides away.